Saw a little baby yesterday!

In the middle of organizing events and contributing indirectly to the issues close to my heart (mostly child related), I have lost touch with the real reason for doing what I do. All the work, juggling, dealing with politics in an organization, people who are painful, all of that is to make sure that some difference is being made in the lives of the real beneficiaries.

Those beneficiaries are the innocent child who has no control over the circumstances of his/her birth and the adoptive parents who want a child in their lives. And hopefully, to some degree, comfort in the birth mother's heart that that little scrap of humanity is well placed to have a good life.

Saw a little baby who has joined her family one week ago through adoption. Her level of activity and engagement, the obvious difference that one week has made to her growth and care, the parents and their pride and the difference a child makes in a home - I got back in touch with that yesterday. It gave strength to my conviction that my personal contribution has not been in vain.

I am done with voluntary stuff now, though. The politics and the jostling for power/control has never been of interest. Also, I am finding out that sucessful development in Indian groups has to be done with an understanding of the politics . Otherwise, however well one intendes/executes, the end result does not end up being close to the one envisaged. Since the politicking is pretty painful and personal - people can't seem to separate the problem from the person in the non-corporate circles, I figure that retiring is a good option. 'Head down and work without any talk' is going to be the policy from now on - uniformly. That way, maybe the credit may not happen but at least the constant pulling down will not be heard!

Thank God that the place I work at is an oasis from this attitude! And thank god I found a place to work that values my inputs, allows for the flexibility that I need to juggle home and work AND pays me to do it! Those places do exist!